


Cayenne

by honeyheffron



Category: The Beatles (Band)
Genre: Alcohol, Cigarettes, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Hamburg Era, M/M, Minor Violence, Period-Typical Homophobia, Slow Burn, creative liberties taken with how well george and paul can speak german, those fools only knew a few select words in real life but here they're fluent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-09
Updated: 2019-09-09
Packaged: 2020-10-13 00:36:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20573546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honeyheffron/pseuds/honeyheffron
Summary: George, Ringo, and the fervid wiles of Hamburg, 1960.





	Cayenne

**Author's Note:**

> Title lifted from The Beatles' instrumental track of the same name.

They’re all off their heads, of course, because Hamburg is the naughtiest place in the world, and one thing it’s never short of is excess. George’s taken a handful of something from someone, in a haze of shivering guitar strings and cigarette-stale calls of, _“Mach schau! Mach schau!”_ which they do, fervently, knocking and screaming and strumming about and _maching_ their goddamn _schau_ until they’re open and raw like war wounds.

Paul claps a warm grip on the back of his neck when the clock has finally run out, and though the Prellies make his hands rattle like a parchment drum, his prizewinning grin screams _veni, vidi, vici._ As they stumble off the stage, George laughs at him, laughs at how filthy and invincible they are, sweat-slick and flushed under layers of leather.

He knows they’ll go on frothing at the mouth until sunrise, and they’ll bring about their own personal Blitzkrieg on the city that never tells them no, and perhaps tonight they’ll do it with friends—about a third of Rory Storm and the Hurricanes wait at the bar, waving lazily, and they reek of roguery and cheap beer, promising mischief of the mother-disgracing kind.

But first—“Need t’piss,” George tells Paul, who nods and ruffles his hair too hard, and then bounces away to join John, Stu, and Pete in greeting the Hurricanes, rock and roll pirates of the New World. George scoffs as he hears John say something like, “Well, if it isn’t Rory Rain and the Cyclones!” amidst Paul ordering a round of drinks for them all in slurred, broken German, and wonders how he’d landed himself the daftest friends in all of Liverpool.

As he makes his way up the club’s crumbling staircase, he realizes miserably that he can’t remember which door in the half-lit hall actually leads to the loo (he can’t remember much more than guitar licks and John and Paul’s matching manic smiles, these days, which he figures he should be far more worried about than he is), and so he heedlessly tries the first door on his left.

The next ten seconds are the longest of his life.

What he first sees is someone’s bare, undulating arse—which isn’t particularly startling, at first, because Hamburg’s overindulgence makes everything far less scandalizing—but then it’s the hips ringed by legs that aren’t sporting stockings, and are decidedly not altogether feminine.

And then it’s the pair of eyes that meet George’s, achingly, familiarly blue, and his mind supplies Ringo, his mate, who he’s now watching rock into a very unwomanly bedmate. He sees the sharp glint of his rings tangled in short, blonde locks, fingers twitching with every creak of the cushions.

Ringo stares at him from the cheap velvet sofa where they lie, and remarkably, doesn’t yell, or even stop what he’s doing—the man underneath him hasn’t noticed George’s intrusion yet, eyes shut in unfettered bliss—Ringo simply cocks a brow at him, and as soon as his partner lets out an unmistakable moan George finally retrieves the good sense to shut the door.

His back hits the wall opposite with a dull thud, and his blood runs like ice. Hot, crippling embarrassment settles in the pit of his stomach, shameful like a sin.

He thinks maybe there should be a punchline, here, something that would jestfully invalidate the fact he’d just seen his mate fucking another bloke in some stripper’s gaudy dressing room.

He also thinks he should run, maybe pretend like this hadn’t happened at all, spare them both the trouble of stuttering explanations and awkward apologies. But, within him is also something akin to reckless, boyish curiosity, the kind that keeps his feet planted outside the door like they’ve got nowhere better to be.

He’s never met a queer before—or, at least he thought he hadn’t. He probably shouldn’t liken them to exoticism, but he senses some element of fascination within himself at the whole bloody business. 

The oddest thing about all of it is that he didn’t look like a queer, at least to George, and he’s sure any other bellend walking the Reeperbahn would agree, if they saw him on the street. He’s always been told you could pick them out, that they were their own discernible breed of strange and terrible—with Ringo, it was halfway unfathomable.

Minutes pass like molasses before the door of doom opens again, and a bedraggled, pink-faced lad steps through, shirt half-buttoned and dark coat in hand. He stares at him, steely and stolid, and then says something in German too quick for George’s sorry foreigner brain to comprehend.

“Er…_entschuldigung,_” he murmurs, fumbling over unfamiliar syllables. _Sorry._ Because what else are you to say to someone you’ve now seen your mate’s dick in?

The man pauses, and then smirks at him, something weird and wide. George is left in a haze as he disappears down the stairs and into the night.

“See you’ve met Werner.”

George turns with a start, and Ringo is there, leant up against the doorframe. He’s half-dressed and fucked out, cigarette between his teeth, the curls of his teddy boy coif flattened and disorderly.

“Aye, seems a decent lad,” George quips lamely. Ringo doesn’t laugh.

He takes a drag from his ciggie and says, rather coldly, “So, you’re a voyeur now, are you?”

George’s heart leaps to his throat, “I wasn’t—”

Ringo, mercifully, cracks a smile. “It’s alright, Georgie, just messin’.”

George swallows. He’s got a hundred questions and not a single clue how he should voice any one of them, and Ringo’s just looking at him, calm as a summer sea.

He ventures, “So you’re…”

“Aye.”

“I had no idea.”

“You never asked.”

Smoke slides out from between his lips—a dragon’s breath. He gazes at George, pensive.

“Figure we might as well do this here, so. If you’ve got a problem with it, you ought to just say so now.”

George frowns deeply. He likes Ringo, sometimes even prefers his company over the smothering two-headed beast that is _John&Paul,_ and firmly dislikes the idea of squandering their friendship over whatever it was he liked to do between the sheets. He doesn’t care, not really.

“No, nothin’ like that,” he assures him in great faith, “Doesn’t bother me. You’re still a mate. S’just unexpected, is all.”

“Well, you walkin’ in on me buggerin’ that lad into next week was unexpected too, so I reckon we’re even.”

The sudden vulgarity startles George quite profoundly—his deer-in-the-headlights impression must amuse Ringo, who lets out a resonant cackle.

“Sod _off,_” George scoffs, offering an odd bark of laughter himself at the absurdity of it all. He can’t wait to wake up in the morning and pretend none of this ever happened. 

“At least help me find the loo, would you,” George says, “S’what I came up here for in the first place.”

Ringo smiles prettily and pats his shoulder, leading him along. “This way, lad.”

George lets himself be guided, in a strange state of relief, and somehow fools himself into thinking nothing has changed.

* * *

The next time he sees Ringo is a late afternoon downstairs at the Kaiserkeller. The club is empty, only hours away from opening its doors for the nightcrawlers of the Reeperbahn, and he’s pounding skillfully away at the drum set onstage, marking his way through an improvised fill.

George makes his presence known with a low whistle. He offers a small wave as Ringo looks up, grinning. “Hey, Georgie.”

“Where’s the rest of your merry band?” George asks, stepping up onto the stage. He looks around halfheartedly for any stray Hurricanes, hoping quietly that he doesn’t find any—they’re good lads, but Ringo’s the best of them, George thinks.

“Sleepin’,” Ringo snorts, “Had a little too much fun last night. Said I’d wake ‘em up twenty minutes before show. Where’s yours?”

“The same, ‘cept for Stu. He’s gone off to see Astrid,” George says. Ringo hums.

George glances down at the drum kit. “Liked what you were playin’ when I came in.”

“Yeah? Wish I could remember it,” Ringo laughs, “Just sort of comes off whenever it comes off. Do you play?” 

“Not really. Drums are cool and all, jus’ never had a kit handy to practice with meself.”

“Oh, well, c’mere,” Ringo says, reaching toward the corner of the stage and wheeling over an extra stool, “I’ll show you somethin’.”

George sits down and scoots in close, taking the sticks from Ringo’s outstretched hand. He smells cigarette smoke and a faint bit of cheap cologne—the same kind he’d smelled on that German lad he’d caught Ringo with nights ago. It’s a bawdy sort of token, left behind, reconjuring intimate images. He shivers helplessly and tries to put it out of mind.

“Right, okay,” Ringo begins, “Try somethin’ on your own for me. Just whatever feels natural.”

George pauses, thinks, and then starts to tap a hesitant beat on the snare drum, quick and light. Once he settles in more, he mixes in the hi-hat, trying to replicate the beat of a melody he’s played before on guitar. The mix of the tune he hears in his head with the pitch-less rhythm of the drums trips him up, eventually, and he stumbles over himself, then stops playing, a little sheepish.

“Not bad,” Ringo nods, “Try and play them less like a guitar, though.”

The keen observation catches George off-guard, for a moment. “How could you tell I was thinkin’ like guitar?”

“You had that look on your face,” he explains, with a tiny smile, “The kind you get when you’re really concentratin’. Like you can hear the melody before you play it.”

George smirks, thoughtlessly teasing, “Been watching me face, have you?”

“Sometimes. You’re easy to notice, you know.”

Ringo’s face shifts as a startled silence descends over them both, like he hadn’t expected the words to come out the way they did. George feels his own cheeks warming—_easy to notice._ Ringo really had been watching him; Ringo thinks he’s something _worth_ looking at. And he can’t explain why that thought excites him, just a little.

“Bet you say that to all the lads,” George blurts out, a terrible, terrible attempt at a joke, and immediately, desperately wants to kick himself. Christ, he had tact, once. Too much time with John has clearly swept that away.

By some miracle, Ringo thinks he’s funny, and laughs, evidently loosening up again. “No,” he says, “Just the noticeable ones.”

“Well, ta for noticin’.” 

They’re playing, George realizes. Just playing. It doesn’t need to mean anything if they can laugh about it afterwards.

* * *

In the days that follow, how they spend their off-time begins to call for the other’s companionship. Ringo finds more time to teach George the odd bit of drumming here and there, and George bangs away gracelessly just to make him laugh; George invites him along when they slip off to Astrid’s house to be fed by her endlessly generous mother; they start to share more ciggies, tunes, and laughter backstage or in between sets—all simple, easy, comfortable things, welcomed and worn.

He’s content, joyful, the both of them finding a rare camaraderie in one another that could almost rival the particular singularity of John and Paul’s; George can almost understand why they choose to be so insufferable together, now that he knows what it’s like to speak to someone without words.

They’re closer than ever. And so, one night, they decide to get roaringly, exceptionally drunk together.

It’s Ringo’s idea, initially. He tells George a couple of his bandmates had somehow nicked a full crate of lager from a run-down bar just up the street, and they now had more drink than they knew what to do with. They take that crate to an unoccupied dressing room upstairs, lock themselves in, and drink more than they can piss.

George’s whole body is warm and buzzing—he feels like one giant, vibrating being. He’s laid out on a tiny daybed-sofa with a multitude of holes in its cushions, staring up at the peeling, dark-spotted ceiling above him, giggling at absolutely nothing. Ringo’s much the same, though he’s sitting up, his back flush against the front of the sofa, closest to George’s feet.

“Hey Rings,” George slurs, his thoughts a muddled mess, “How’d you know you were queer?”

Ringo squints at him, his brows lowered over his eyes, “How d’you mean?”

George throws a hand up, waving it around like it’ll help the words come easier, “Well, you know it’s like—it’s like this. See, the first time I really fancied a girl was when I was thirteen. Her name was Angela, and she was a year older than me, you know, and Paul used to make fun of me because I was scrawny, and she had, like, these huge tits. He used to say stuff like her tits were bigger than I was, ‘cause he’s a fuckin’ _arsehole,_” George spits, and Ringo laughs at that, “Anyway, m’point is, who was your Angela?”

He watches Ringo take another swig of his beer, then stare into the bottle intently, as if it might hold all the answers to the cosmos. His posture sinks a little, and even drunk, George is worried he’s somehow struck a nerve.

He frowns, “Ritchie?”

“My Angela was a boy called Charlie,” Ringo begins, almost too quickly, “I met him in hospital when I was a lad.”

George’s stomach drops. The word ‘hospital’ smacks into him like a ton of bricks. He remains decidedly silent, hoping to allow Ringo the time and space to speak.

“I was recovering from tuberculosis, at the time. Lost a whole year of school,” he goes on, “Charlie was my age. We were being treated on the same floor. He used to come over and play records for me, ‘cause I was too sick to get out of bed and put them on meself.”

He gets a fond sort of smile, then, “He used to wear these daft western boots. They were too big for him, but he used to stomp around the halls in them all day long. And he had this big, loud, nutty laugh, too. Anybody would crack up just hearing it. I thought he was brilliant.”

George can’t help a tiny smile, himself. Ringo takes another swig of beer, then sighs, anxiously tapping at the glass bottleneck.

“We were in me room. He sat next to me in bed. We were listening to a new record his parents had brought in for him—Alma Cogan, I think it was. We were jus’ talking, like always, and then he smiled over at me, kissed me, and told me he loved me. And I couldn’t understand why it was me he chose, you know. I was sick and frail and I’m sure I looked a right show, most days. But he didn’t care. It was beautiful, Georgie, it was. I’ll never forget it.”

“What happened to him?” George is almost afraid to ask.

“I don’t know,” Ringo says, “He got transferred to a different hospital about a month later. Never saw him again. And I’d like to think, you know, that he’s out there somewhere, healthy and happy, but. Well, he was really sick, George. Sicker than I was. I don’t know if he ever recovered.”

A bout of melancholy silence settles over them both. There’s a sudden tightness in George’s throat. His treacherous eyes sting with the weight of unshed tears, and the drink isn’t doing much for his self-control so he can’t manage to swallow them down. He quickly scrubs a hand over his face, so as not to let Ringo see.

“Are you _crying?”_

So much for that, then.

“No!” George protests, still rubbing furiously at his rapidly dampening cheeks because apparently he’s full of stupid, ugly tears, and this is probably the most embarrassing moment of his life. “I’m jus’ drunk and—ahh—" He cuts himself off with a hopeless sort of whine.

Ringo’s laughing near hysterically, now, stumbling up to sit next to George on the couch. He pats his shoulder in an effort to comfort him, which is somehow even more humiliating, “George, it’s okay—”

“No, it’s not! You’re the one who had to go through all that and I’m the one sittin’ here blubbering like a baby,” George wails dramatically, and Ringo collapses into giggles again, “Christ, you can’t tell _anyone._”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Ringo assures him, still giggling. George huffs, sniffling and wiping at his eyes with a damp sleeve, utterly mortified.

Ringo clicks his tongue sympathetically, simultaneously amused and concerned. “Here, give us a mo.”

He pulls a tiny handkerchief from his inside jacket pocket. Careful fingers find George’s chin and tip his head up encouragingly, so that Ringo can see him in all his red, splotchy, teary glory. George almost ducks away again, feeling painfully overexposed, but then Ringo starts to dab softly at his under-eyes, sweeping the miserable, watery evidence away. He’s a little clumsy, with the drink in him, but it’s tender nonetheless.

George almost starts bawling again, with the pang of affection that seizes him in the moment—Ringo smiles at him as he cleans him up, like he’s the cutest, most ridiculous person in the world.

“Tell you what,” he says, “That’s the first time I’ve ever been able to laugh after telling that story.”

And George is so, so drunk, but he’s never felt more whole in his life.

* * *

It’s maybe two weeks later, post-_schau,_ long past the witching hour, and George is coming down hard from a Prellie high. He can feel his eyelids buzzing with the remains of synthetic energy, his bones lethargic and slow-moving.

Paul and Pete have already succumbed to their respective crashes, as George finds them collapsed and dozing like bags of lead in their bunks back at the room. John and Stu, the crazy art-freak bastards, had simply popped another handful to combat their comedowns, insisting the night was young and that there was still more trouble to be found—George had politely opted out of their hunt.

Which brings him to their tiny room, wherein he falls into bed with his jacket and boots still on, and drifts away before he can even pull the blanket over himself.

Time passes. His dreams are disjointed, at first, flashes of images and memories and impossibilities. They’re the unrecallable kind, either too boring to remember or too fantastical to fathom. He floats above it all on a gently rocking wave, beyond reality.

And then, the shapes and colors coalesce into something simpler, kinder. It begins easy enough—he’s in a bed, big and soft and clean, a far cry from Hamburg’s dinginess. The sheets are soft white. Someone’s there beside him, pressing soft, tiny kisses into his neck. There’s a hand in his hair, too, dawdling pleasantly along the paths of his scalp.

It’s nice, hazy and cozy and perfect in a way only dreams can be—there’s nothing lewd about any of it, but there is something distinctly intimate about the way he’s being held, and the warmth of the body wrapped around his. There’s a soft murmur of words that disappear into his collarbone, and though George can’t hear them, he swears he can feel their sweetness.

The kisses at his throat start to trail up, up, up, along his jaw and across his cheek—he lets his eyes flutter shut in anticipation. 

There’s a small, breathy laugh from the person above him, distantly familiar. He doesn’t ponder, but holds his breath as their lips collide with his, heavily, adoringly.

And then George opens his eyes and sees blue.

Ringo.

There’s a mighty crash, then, and he jolts awake as though there’s lightning in his veins. The room is bathed in the faint first light of dawn—he’d slept only hours, though the way his heart pounds makes it feel like years and years.

He sits up to see John and Stu stumbling through the doorway, shushing each other and giggling like naughty schoolchildren. 

Pete mumbles something across the room that sounds suspiciously like, “Shut up, you tossers,” which only makes the both of them laugh harder.

“Sorry, mate, sorry,” Stu says, slurred like he’s drank himself within an inch of his life, climbing to his bunk above George’s on unsteady legs. 

John, swaying back and forth like a ship at sea, drenched in sweat and stinking of devilry, meets George’s eyes in a squint. He peers at him through the thin slivers of early morning sunlight escaping through their boarded window, thoughtful, as if assessing him. George feels naked, like John somehow _knows._

“Okay, Georgie?” he asks, “Y’look white as a sheet, son.”

He swallows, “M’fine.”

John shrugs, mumbles something hopelessly unintelligible, and collapses right on top of Paul in his bottom bunk. Paul wakes with an irritated groan as they collide, smacking at him fiercely—it’s a fruitless measure, of course, as John was likely long gone before he’d even fallen on top of him. Stu sets off laughing again.

He’d laugh too, if he didn’t suddenly feel like the culmination of all sin and iniquity. 

It’s not like the thought hadn’t crossed his mind before—he was just curious. Even when he was younger, he’d wondered what it would be like to do the sort of things to a man that you were supposed to do to a woman, but none of it had never overridden what he thought of girls. It had never made their soft skin and pink lips and pretty skirts any less desirable.

But that’s all it is: plain, indiscriminatory desire. It’s just Ringo. It’s only Ringo that makes him laugh and teaches him things about drums and wipes his drunken tears away and looks at him like he’s something _good._ It’s Ringo who’s braved an unkind world and has come out of it kind. And it’s Ringo he wants, and Ringo he can’t have.

* * *

George starts staring, and thinking, and hoping, which are terribly precarious affairs.

He watches Ringo, one night, while they’re waiting to go on backstage at the Kaiserkeller and the Hurricanes are banging away at some bluesy Eddie Cochran cover. He’s a sensational drummer, of course—there’s a reason they’re keen to steal him away for any gig they can. 

But there’s something even more captivating about the way he moves, George finds. He’s effortlessly graceful, like the brushstrokes of a painter. Rock and roll drumming isn’t supposed to be refined but Ringo finds a way to make it clean and precise, compelling without being distracting.

He’s wild, when they’re in the thick of a song, thrumming and swaying along to the rhythm he’s creating with unapologetic freedom. George watches the sweat gather on his brow and feels a pit of dangerous heat building in his gut—he watches his hands, too, and wonders what they’d feel like if they touched him anywhere, everywhere.

And when Ringo offers him a smile from behind the kit, something bright and beaming and just for him—

He’s far, far gone, and he knows it.

* * *

One morning, Ringo shakes him awake just before sunrise.

He’s sure he’s dreaming again, at first, because absolutely no self-respecting musician in all of Hamburg is up at this ungodly hour—most have just gotten into bed, in fact.

Nevertheless, he blinks away the bleariness of the morning and Ringo is still there, grinning, crouched at George’s bedside like his mother on Christmas day. The light of half-day, half-night leaves the room in a silver-blue glow, and the coolness makes that odd grey streak in Ringo’s hair stand out like a storm cloud.

“What.” George croaks at him, eloquently. 

He keeps his voice low so as not to disturb the others—with a glance he realizes John has fallen asleep on top of Paul again, in the bunk across from his own.

“Was goin’ to watch the sunrise,” Ringo explains, a little sheepish, “The uppers are—well, keepin’ me up.” 

“…And you want me to come with?”

“Don’t ‘ave to,” he shrugs, “Figured you’ve slept through most German sunrises, is all.”

George ponders that, for a moment, and finds himself a little awed by the truth of it. He hasn’t woken up to anything but the rays of the low afternoon for nearly a month now.

Ringo looks at him, a little hopeful, and George is so tangled up in blue he blurts out, “Okay.”

He stands, pleased, and pats George’s knee with a grin, “C’mon, then, she’s waiting for us.”

George drags himself up and more or less stumbles after him, trying blindly to flatten out his bedhead—he’s suddenly embarrassed at the thought of how he must look, sleep-mussed and half-awake and generally the furthest thing from cool. 

He follows Ringo down the creaking hall and up one of the back flights of stairs, only a little unsteady. They meet a wood-plank barricade at the top of the staircase, in the form of two loose, rectangular boards that cover what once might have been an opening for a door. Ringo shifts them aside and climbs through to the roof with an ease that suggests he’s done this before, and with a great sense of intrigue, George steps in after him.

He shivers as a chilly German breeze meets his senses, unrelenting as it blows its way across the rooftop. His arms come up to wrap around himself involuntarily—he wishes distantly he’d had the sense to grab his leathers before he’d left the room.

Ringo glances back at him, brows furrowed, “Cold, are you?”

“No,” George lies.

Ringo laughs, a short huff of breath through his nose, and slips his jacket off, slinging it around George’s shoulders like a heated cape. “You’re all skin and bones, mate, can’t have you freezin’ out on me.”

Ringo’s fingertips just barely brush his shoulders, but they light tiny fires at every juncture of his skin. George feels the gentlest sense of comfort overcome him.

He’s only ever done this sort of thing for birds. It’s sweet, affectionate in a way it’s not supposed to be between mates. He’s pitifully flustered at the implications, prays Ringo can’t see the dusty bit of pink rising to his cheeks.

Ringo’s soft gaze shifts to the splotchy bit of orange-red cropping up over the horizon, the sky above them fading from evening grey to twilight purple. George watches, too, in mild fascination—the sunrise is a beautiful, tranquil thing. It’s possibly the quietest moment he’s had in weeks. 

“Never watched a sunrise,” George confesses quietly. 

“I’ve always liked them,” Ringo says, “I come up here when I can’t sleep, most nights. No quieter place in all of Germany.”

“Prellies keep you up a lot, then?” George asks.

“Aye,” Ringo murmurs, and then softer, “And other things.”

Their eyes meet meaningfully, and that dreadful heat starts to grow and stretch inside his chest again. Ringo is beautiful, there, outlined in reds and oranges and pinks, kissed by the day. 

He gets the feeling something could happen, if he stares any longer. Something heavy. Reckless.

He tears his eyes away before any of it can bubble up to the surface.

Though, quickly afterwards, without thinking, he pulls Ringo’s borrowed jacket around himself, tighter, closer.

Ringo’s smile is near imperceptible, but George knows it, feels it. They’re like two starlings, flying and flapping in circles, wondering which of them will be the one to land first.

* * *

_“Was denkt sich diese Tunte dabei?”_

_What's that faggot thinking about?_

George hears them before he sees them, even through the club’s cacophony of voices. His ears are still ringing from the roar of the set they’ve just finished, but the words cut through his consciousness swiftly. His blood runs cold as iron.

He feels caught, exposed, open and oozing like a wound. 

“Alright?” Ringo asks from beside him at the bar, pint in hand. Behind him, the other Hurricanes are laughing and cheering amongst themselves, blissfully ignorant. George is struck silent, without an answer.

“_Scheißweichling!_” One of them shouts again. _Fucking sissy._ George turns to face their jeers, jaw set hard.

He is amazed to find that their gazes aren’t set on him, but on Paul.

Across from him, Paul’s eyes have clouded over in a sober, dejected way, and within it is a certain coldness, quiet fury. He’s been harassed like this before, back home—something about the androgyny of his features never fails to simultaneously confuse and piss off either the very bored or the very drunk. 

John has heard their shouts by now, too, turning to face the men where they sit a few tables away.

“What’s that mean, Paul?” John asks lowly. Of course he doesn’t know, George thinks, and can’t decide if it’s better or worse that himself and Paul are the only ones who speak the damn language.

They lock eyes, Paul’s own offering a silent question. George shakes his head, brows drawn together stiffly.

“Nothing,” Paul says to John, and starts to gnaw at his thumbnail, “Don’t worry about it.”

The men yell again, something equally derogatory and shit-filled, and the words are frightening because now, he supposes, they apply to him, even if nobody else knows it. 

He watches a mild understanding settle over John’s face, a sense of clarity indicating that even if he doesn’t know what it is they’re saying, the intent alone is clear and ugly.

“Fuck off!” John snaps back, because of course he does, and makes an obscene gesture with his hand. 

The next few seconds happen like this: the German men squawk back, a ruckus of slurred, angry syllables, and strut like a murder of drunken crows over to John. They get in his face, at which point the rest of them start hollering and making useless threats, the Hurricanes included, which earns the attention of every other nosy bar patron around. Paul, ever the diplomat, places a placating hand on one of the Germans’ puffing chests, which is apparently the wrong move, because they think he’s a queer, and so a fist goes flying into Paul’s jaw and all hell breaks loose.

John springs forward like an arrow and knocks one of them clear onto the ground, smacking and punching and thrashing like a wild animal. Stu, Ringo, and a couple of the Hurricanes lunge forward to yank him off, but each of them are inevitably met with the flying fists of the other Germans.

George runs for Paul, because he’s sure he saw his head hit the hard wooden edge of the bar on the way down. Disastrously, a furious jab knocks into the side of his face before he can get there, and then there’s a stocky German advancing on him like an angry, sweaty bull. George is not a fighter, and never has been, but he throws his arms up and strikes like he refuses to be knocked to the ground.

He catches sight of John, who gets thrown, somehow, leaving the fearless leader he’d tackled earlier on top of him. John flails and takes three hard hits before he seizes the man’s volitant hand and bites into it. It’s deep, and vicious, and blood runs out from his mouth like a spout. The German shrieks like a banshee and George is half sure John is going to bite his fingers off.

The sight is enough for him to lose his focus. His assailant seizes the opening and delivers a blow so brutal he stumbles back into the bar, doubled over around its edge. A hand digs into his hair and painfully wrenches him back upward, and then stops, as if to slam his head back into the surface—

All at once, the pressure disappears, and Ringo is there, throwing the man backward, giving George enough time to stand back up and jump back in. They lock eyes, and see within each other the unfamiliar, the unhinged, and somehow neither one’s honesty scares the other away.

And then a shot rings out, loud as the blows of a hammer.

Every pair of eyes in the room find the wide-eyed, wrinkly old owner of the bar standing atop one of the tables. A handgun, which looks as though it hasn’t been used since the war, is clutched between his shaking fingers and pointed towards the sky.

Every single one of them falls still. It’s utterly silent, apart from the stuttering, pained whimpers of the German man on the floor, who has miraculously kept his fingers, despite John’s toothy assault.

“RAUS!” the old man on the table roars. _GET OUT!_

None of them need to be told twice. George finally gets to Paul, who’s trying to stand on shaking legs, bleary-eyed and bloody. With John’s help, they guide him out quickly, into the night and away from the maelstrom.

“Need a fuckin’ ciggie,” Paul huffs as they limp down the street, and the laughter that follows from them all is a helpless sort.

* * *

They sit and smoke in an alleyway afterwards, just the four of them—himself, John, Paul, and Ringo. The rest of the lads have either gone back to the Kaiserkeller to nurse wounds, or have slunk off to find another bar to party in.

Paul is dabbing carefully at his slow-bleeding head wound with a borrowed handkerchief from Ringo. He’s sat on the ground, resting against the brick wall behind them, smoke clouds skating out from between his lips. Next to him, George and Ringo are leant up against the same wall, sharing one of George’s last ciggies. John is across the way, spitting out blood that isn’t his and wiping at his teeth with his sleeve.

“Grotty,” John laments, grimacing as he spits again. Crimson meets the ground below.

“Were you meaning to bite his hand off?” George asks, half-joking, half-curious.

John thinks for a moment. “I don’t know,” he finally says, followed by, “He hit Paul.”

George has no idea what that’s supposed to mean, and the way John and Paul’s eyes meet after he says it doesn’t clear anything up for him, either. Something passes between them, something deeper and dearer than George has the energy to understand. And really, the whole thing is so completely typical and so completely not that he decides it’s best to unpack all of it later, or maybe not at all.

Eventually, John joins them at the wall and slides down to sit next to Paul, then snags his ciggie and takes a long, long drag. As Paul retrieves it, John’s head finds his shoulder easily, comfortably. 

George looks to Ringo, “Thanks for saving me, back there. Me brains would’ve been all over the bar.”

“Whose brains?” Paul cuts in groggily. His eyes are shut, like he can’t be bothered to keep them open.

“Georgie’s,” Ringo clarifies, “One of ‘em was like to knock his head into the bar before I grabbed him.”

“Would’ve been a waste of a perfectly good brain, that,” John clicks his tongue, “Good on you, Ringsy.”

“Always knew you liked me for more than jus’ me girlish charm,” George drawls, and John snorts.

Ringo glances down at a half-coherent heap of limbs near his feet, “How’s your head, Paul?”

“Oh, keen,” Paul wrests his eyes open, now, with a great show of effort, “Though I can’t remember your name and I think I’ve forgot how to play guitar.”

He yelps as John pulls on a piece of his hair. “Not funny.”

“Was too,” Paul huffs, “But I’m fine, Ritch. Appreciate you letting me bleed all over this,” he shakes the reddened handkerchief around lazily.

Ringo wrinkles his nose. “You can keep it.”

“Y’think you’re able to stand?” John asks Paul, “S’getting too fuckin’ cold out here. We ought to get back.”

“Yeah, think so,” Paul murmurs. He tries to stand, too slow and too shaky, but with some help from the rest of them they manage to get an upright, mostly stable McCartney ready for the walk home. He slings an arm over John’s shoulders to steady himself as they lead on down the alleyway.

George and Ringo linger behind a bit, dusting the grime from their coats and stubbing out the last of their cigarettes.

Ringo is the one to speak. It’s a sudden rattle to their comfortable silence, and there’s something unfamiliar in his tone.

“George.”

“Hm?”

When he looks back, Ringo’s eyes are already on him, smoldering like the last hot coals of a fire. 

George swallows, but doesn’t look away.

Ringo steps forward, one foot, two, so close their noses could touch. George feels his back hit the wall. Ringo’s leg settles between his own. His heart pounds relentlessly, every hair he has stands up on end.

Something settles over the two of them—that same sensitivity that had manifested on the rooftop at sunrise returns like a promise. 

Ringo reaches a hand out, slowly, so slowly George flinches from anticipation as it touches down at his cheekbone. Fingers run along one of the blooming purple-red battle wounds there, feather-light and reverent. Cool rings meet heated bruises. Time has come to a standstill.

Fear builds in his chest, pounding as a gradually building drum roll. To touch is to make real. They can’t go back if they make it real.

A thumb brushes his bottom lip, so light he almost doesn’t feel it. They’re close, so close, and George’s eyes sting because he doesn’t know what to do—he wants, oh, he wants, but wanting feels like murder, like pain.

It’s more than too much.

George knocks his hand away.

Not hard, but fast, panicked. It’s the worst of his instincts. It’s shattering glass. Ringo blinks at him. 

He nods, just once, so small it’s hardly noticeable. His arm returns to his side, respectfully, and he steps swiftly away.

George begs for words to come, but they never do.

* * *

Understandably, Ringo avoids him, after that.

They can barely look at one another. Ringo doesn’t come around to visit or jam with them, anymore, and when John and Paul or even Pete and Stu ask about it, he has to say he doesn’t know. He sticks close to the Hurricanes, and the only time George really sees him is onstage with them for gigs.

And George knows it has absolutely nothing to do with wounded pride, or simple, bloody anger—Ringo’s staying away because he thinks that’s what George _wants._ He had pushed him away, in every sense of the word, and for days, he replays the moment over and over in his head. The guilt keeps him up at night. He’s plagued by thoughts of _what if_ and false images of absolution, and he has no idea how he’s meant to fix any of it.

There’s one moment, some hazy fragment in their weeks of radio silence, where they run into one another on the staircase at the Kaiserkeller. It’s completely mortifying—George wouldn’t blame Ringo for tossing him down the stairwell then and there. He has half a mind to just do it himself. But he doesn’t. They simply share a glance.

There are shadowy circles underneath Ringo’s eyes that make the blue of them appear somehow sadder. His palms and fingers are covered in bandages, too, like he’s been playing harder than usual.

His heart aches. Ringo stuffs his hands into his pockets, like he can tell where George’s thoughts are going. He murmurs a quick, “Sorry,” and brushes past him, hurrying down and away.

Everything is so, so wrong. His mood only worsens after that, and he can feel himself withdrawing from everything, quiet and cold like he used to be before he met Paul, who’d wrangled him out of his childhood shyness with guitar chords and rock and roll records. 

The lads all notice the shift in him, of course they do, but George won’t bring himself to talk about it. He’s not sure he even could.

So he sulks, lonely and heartsick, and thinks he won’t ever forgive himself mucking everything up so spectacularly.

“Georgie,” Paul says to him one day, clearly exasperated, “Watching you pout all hours of the day is exhausting, mate.”

“M’not pouting,” George pouts. He pulls his knees closer to his chest, curled up in his bunk, as he’s oft to do these days.

“Yes, you are,” Paul argues, taking a seat on the bed at George’s feet, “You’ve been broody for ages, now. What’s going on? Somethin’ with Ringo, is it?” 

“No.”

“You’re a bad liar.”

George glares at him. When Paul indignantly refuses to relent, staring back just as fiercely, George sighs.

“We had a row. Sort of.”

“Oh,” Paul says, like he expected worse, “Well, Ringo’s a decent lad, yeah? He’ll come around.”

George doesn’t reply. Paul asks, “What was it about?”

“Nothing.”

He sighs, “George, I can’t help you if—”

“I didn’t bloody well ask for your help, did I?” George snaps, cutting him off. The last thing he needs right now is to be babied, especially by Paul.

Said babier throws his arms up in surrender. “Okay, okay. Just thought I’d tell you the Hurricanes are supposed to be on before us, tonight, in case you were looking for some excuse to talk to him.”

George rolls his eyes, “You make it sound like we’re in primary school.” 

“You’re not?” Paul’s brows shoot up acerbically, “Could’ve fooled me.”

George gets ready to chuck his pillow at him (like a mature adult) when Paul speaks again. “Look, Georgie, I’m jus’ worried for you. You’re all scowls and sharp teeth these days, like when we first met. It’s _sad._”

“I _am_ sad,” George says, “And nothing you say is gonna fix it, so quit geggin’ in.”

He buries his face in his pillow, effectively shutting Paul out. He hears him sigh frustratedly, but he doesn’t hear him get up to leave. 

A moment later, there’s a comforting hand resting at the small of his back, rubbing back and forth carefully. George allows it, only because Paul’s persistence means he’s being _really_ nice, nice beyond his measures of patience. That last comment would’ve usually been enough to drive him away.

“You’ll work it out with Ringo,” Paul tells him, like it’s law, “You’ve both got something really good together.”

The sudden sincerity catches him off guard. He unburies himself from his cotton shield and glances sidelong at Paul—his head is ducked in that way it always is when he’s said something genuine, when words come too close for comfort. They don’t talk like this, normally, but the change isn’t altogether unwelcome.

“Aye,” George admits, quietly and honestly, “I don’t want to lose it.”

“You won’t,” Paul says, and for once, his stubbornness is gratifying.

And so, the night comes, the Hurricanes finish their set, and the fabulous Silver Beatles prepare to jump on after them. George watches Ringo rise from his kit, habitually twirling one of his sticks between his fingers. 

His heart pounds as the group comes down, Ringo on the tail end of their single-file. As they pass each other on the stairs up to the stage, Paul’s words echoing in George’s head, there comes a brave, urgent impulse within him—he throws a wayward hand on Ringo’s shoulder, silently pleading.

Ringo turns to him, wide-eyed, questioning. He waits for George to speak.

“Let me make it up to you,” George chokes out. The rest of his band have already made it onstage, and he can hear John calling for him.

Ringo shakes his head and says, “Nothing happened, lad, nothing to make up for.”

George tries, a little helpless, “But I want…” _You? This? Us?_

John shouts his name again. Ringo looks at him for one heavy moment. 

“Okay,” he finally says, “Okay, George. Make it up to me.”

His heart flutters hopefully. “I’ll come by in the morning, yeah?”

Ringo smiles softly, and it’s almost like it used to be, “Yeah.”

* * *

George does come by, in the stillness of the next morning, jittery as he may be. He’s breathless when Ringo emerges from his room, in a dashing black coat, teddy boy proper, with his hair in a ruffled, curly coif. It’s a different sort of beautiful than what George has known before—he’s always found him beautiful, but his familiarities have been polished up just a little, an indicator that Ringo has tried to look that extra bit more handsome for him. He stares, maybe a little shamelessly. Ringo raises a brow.

“You’re starin’,” he points out.

“Can’t help it. You’re easy to notice, you know.” George parrots the words from all those weeks ago. 

Ringo smiles at that, warm like sunshine.

They fall into an easy rhythm, learning and realizing each other again as they walk along the Reeperbahn. It’s without the blackness of night and artificial glow of neon lights, temperate in the daylight, and conversation comes easy.

George leads them to a glittering lake just outside the district—Astrid had mentioned it, sometime, commenting that an ex-boyfriend had taken her there once. Suffice it to say Hamburg isn’t exactly the romance capital of the world, so the idea of getting out of the city for a while seemed like a good one to George.

They take in the swaying blue of the water. Winds through the trees guide small flurries of leaves to rest along the lake’s surface, and there’s no other sound around them but the soft pounding of their boots upon dew-wettened grass.

“This is great,” Ringo breathes, a little awed, his eyes searching every wonder around them. George looks at him and is sure he’s a wonder himself.

They find a spot to sit down near the waterfront, laughing and wincing as moisture from the grass seeps into their jeans.

“Apart from me arse being soaked,” Ringo laughs, “This place really is gorgeous.”

“Aye, thought you’d like it. Quiet, and all, like your sunrises,” George says.

Ringo’s eyes gleam. He murmurs, “You’re a good lad, George.”

George inhales shakily, careful as he picks his next words. Now or never.

“But I wasn’t, you know,” he pauses. “That night. I wasn’t good at all.”

There’s a thoughtful silence. Ringo glances at him, studying him, as if remembering, reliving. He shakes his head. “Not your fault. I was the one readin’ things wrong.”

“But I wanted it,” George confesses, in a frightfully small voice. 

Ringo stares. “Wanted what?”

“I wanted you to kiss me,” he rushes out. “I did, and I do.”

Ringo studies him, almost apprehensive, like he won’t let himself believe it. “You don’t ‘ave to say all this jus’ to spare me feelings.”

“M’not,” George insists, “And m’not queer, either, but it’s like—it’s not all lads, it’s jus’—jus’ _you._”

George’s hands are shaking where they rest at his thigh. Ringo reaches a tender hand out to steady them, his palm smoothing over fear and uncertainty.

“What can I do, George?” Ringo asks, near a whisper, “What can I give you?”

“You. And everything you are. Please.”

Ringo looks at him, open and earnest and a little overwhelmed. And then George’s lips seize his in a kiss like star-pulses.

Ringo makes a low, surprised sound in the back of his throat, but his hands come up to cup George’s face even so. Settled, they move together languidly, ever slow, as if to taste and feel every inch they can. Ringo’s thumbs skirt along his cheekbones in time, soothing and so gently adoring that George thinks he may unravel.

He moans, high and mild, and pulls Ringo down on top of him, his own back sinking into the grass. With every inch of his skin set aflame, he begs wordlessly for more, nipping softly at Ringo’s lower lip. 

Ringo shivers against him, grabbing at him like he can’t possibly get enough, licking softly into George’s mouth with practiced ease. With needy hands George reaches up to thread his fingers through Ringo’s hair, grappling for any sort of stability through a whirlwind of touch and sensation.

When they part, George is quivering everywhere, deliciously overwrought. Ringo gasps into the side of his neck, “Christ, you’re a _dream._”

George laughs, knowing somehow that the world is theirs, and feels every piece of himself come together.

**Author's Note:**

> as always, comments and feedback are very much appreciated!! you can find me on tumblr @honeyheffron. all my love <3  
(p.s. i absolutely used an online dictionary for all of the german phrases here, so if you speak the language and spot any glaring errors, please let me know!)


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